of light against
which her blonde head framed itself, and her untidy hair was like a
dusty mesh of gold. She regarded the amiable gentleman out of eyes
child-like and purely blue. Under her round chin the edges of a black
bow tied loosely stood out like the wings of a butterfly. Her dress
was careless and poor, but she was grace in it and youth--"and what,"
thought Bulstrode, "has one a right to expect more of any woman?" He
remembered her boots and shuddered. He remembered the one franc a day
and began his campaign.

"I want so much to meet the painter of that portrait over there," he
began.

Her face lightened.

"Oh, did you like it?"

"I think it's wonderful, perfectly wonderful!"

A slow red crept up the thin contour of her cheek. She leaned forward!

"Do you really mean that?"

He said most seriously:

"Yes, I can frankly say I haven't seen a portrait in a long time which
impressed me so much."

His praise was not in Latin Quarter vernacular, and coming from a
Philistine, had only a certain value to the artist. But to a lonely
stranded girl the words were balm. Bulstrode, in his immaculate dress,
his conventional manner, was as foreign a person to the Bohemian
student as if he had been an inhabitant of another planet. Her speech
was brusque and quick, with a generous burr in her "rs" when she
replied.

"I've studied at Julian's two years now. This was my Salon picture,
but it didn't get in."

"If one can judge by those that _did_"--Bulstrode's tact was
delightful--"you should feel honorably refused. I suppose you are at
work on another portrait?"

The face which his interest had brightened clouded.

"No, I'm going home--to Idaho--I'm not painting any more."

All the tragedy to a whole-souled Latin Quarter art student that this
implied was not revealed to Bulstrode, but, as it was, his sensitive
kindness felt so much already that it ached. He hastened toward his
goal with eagerness:

"I'm so awfully sorry! Because, do you know, I was going to ask you if
you couldn't possibly paint my portrait?" It came from him on the spur
of the moment. His frank eyes met hers and might have quailed at his
hypocrisy, but the expression of joy on her face, eclipsing everything
else, dazzled him.

She cried out impulsively:

"Oh--goodness!" so loud that one or two tea-drinkers turned about.
After a second, having gained control and half as though she expected
some motive she did not understand